Total War: Rome

[Seeker]

I've played Total War: Shogun, but not Medieval Total War.

Has anyone heard anything good about this sequal? Will it fix the problems of the original (alt-tabbing etc).

[vovan]

I hear Rome will be the greatest of them all. But then, don't they all say that?

I don't know. I only played Shogun as well, not Medieval, but I am pretty excited about Rome. There's a lot of hype around it any way.

Check out some previews and see for yourself. It's extensively covered by Gamespot for instance:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/rometotalwar/preview_6097904.html

[General Ludd]

Check out the e3 thread started by Boris in this forum. I posted a few screenshots and someone else posted a link to a whole ****load of movies, including 'time commander' episodes which is an 'educational' history program on the BBC.


It looks amazing.

[asleepathewheel]

looks great

[:) Smiley]

drool

[Stuie]

This is pretty much the only thing on the radar that has me interested. Most other games about Rome have been crap. Fortunately, I liked the Shogun and Medieval Total War games, so I'm optimistic about Rome.

Here's hoping it meets my expectations.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I played Medieval, but it got old quick. I actually never finished a game, haven't touched it since.

I did not feel like directing the troops was much like tactics.

[Traianvs]

Looking at the screenshots... the troops really look fake!
Romans soldiers with lorica hamata (chain mail) together with imperial legion helmets, no centuriones to lead and direct their units, identical units
Celts with no shirt on (not even a single elite with chain armour and heavy weapons), each celt having 2 fresh heads hanging on their backs (they must have decimated a roman army quite recently then, and i reckon moving with a few heads on your back isn't that easy too!). Celts starting a siege with towers . Celts in formation. Celts holding a gladius (short piercing sword) instead of a long hacking sword? And they all have blond hair. eh..
Elephants completely protected by scale armour? (even the legs?)

Well I hope the game at least is fun, but imo if you're making historical games I'd prefer playing them with correct arms and tactics etc.... makes the game a lot more fun and compelling

[DrSpike]

They are cool games, and I expect Rome will deliver the goods. However not sure what new things they will deliver.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Trajanus
Looking at the screenshots... the troops really look fake!
Romans soldiers with lorica hamata (chain mail) together with imperial legion helmets, no centuriones to lead and direct their units, identical units
Celts with no shirt on (not even a single elite with chain armour and heavy weapons), each celt having 2 fresh heads hanging on their backs (they must have decimated a roman army quite recently then, and i reckon moving with a few heads on your back isn't that easy too!). Celts starting a siege with towers . Celts in formation. Celts holding a gladius (short piercing sword) instead of a long hacking sword? And they all have blond hair. eh..
Elephants completely protected by scale armour? (even the legs?)



Well I hope the game at least is fun, but imo if you're making historical games I'd prefer playing them with correct arms and tactics etc.... makes the game a lot more fun and compelling

I agree with some of your concerns, mainly the siege tower and formation part. But bare in mind that alot of it - especially the graphic details - are abstractations which are merely ment to represent a unit and should be taken with a grain of salt. Of course, the more accurate the better... but it comes to a point where you have to chose between accuracy and system requirements or functionality. But atleast they aren't just red dots, eh?

It does seem like a vast improvement over previous total war games in this regard, though. If you watch the movies you can see soldiers acting somewhat independantly and with some diverse animations instead of all doing the same thing... even if they are all clones.



And didn't celts sometimes go into battle completely naked? I heard that in one of those time commander episodes...

[Traianvs]

Celts occasionally did enter combat naked, with paint on them too... And a special hairgel in their hair based on lime to model their hair into protruding spikes like you can see on that screenshot with the Celts (that's accurate ). This combined with their large posture, their warcries etc was meant to intimidate their opponents. Most Celts wore shirts and pants though. The elite members of the society had intricate helmets and chain armour (Celts were excellent smiths) and abundant weapons on them. They even used chariots in combat for a period of time, but they proved largely inefficient as Romans knew how to counter chariots; so only the cavalry remained as mounted troops. Their infantry was usually cannon fodder for the romans,... only if they had enough numbers and enough cavalry they had a chance of defeating the Romans. Same thing for the Germans btw. Great cavalry, poor infantry while the Romans had a mighty infantry and a small cavalry unit. Usually Romans used Celt/German mercs for cavalry.
A very efficient German tactic (I don't know about the Gauls) was to use cavalry and very lightly armoured skirmishers in combination.

I can't download the movies btw, gamespot requires registration

[General Ludd]

Try this. http://rtw.revolutiongaming.com/zonelord11x/


Someone posted it in the e3 thread - the larger (100mb + ) files are episodes of Time Commander.

[General Ludd]

The biggest concern I have is... flaming pigs. Now, I'm not big on history, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that this was some sort of weapon used at some point. Although it seems rather obscure and... silly.


But my problem is how are they deployed? From the short glance I saw of them in a movie, it seemed as though they started on the field in flames, standing in formation and can be marched about just like any other troops. That's ludicrous. Hopefully I misinterpreted what I saw.

[child of Thor]

all armies require a mobile barbeque no?

One thing that comes to mind after Trajanus's coments is that i suppose in a way increasing graphical detail has its draw-backs?

In shogun and medieval you got an idea of what your troops looked like, with out being able to get so much detail that you could pick out faults like this, they were fairly simple sprites i think?

I did watch most of the Time Commander series on tv, it made a welcome break from the endless soaps and gameshows

As long as they've lavished as much attention on the rest of the game as they have on the 3D engine, i'm sure it will be a great game - a small bit of gold in the mass of copper

[DrSpike]

I can see the headlines now: Strategy game derailed by animal rights activists!